Reaching Out
by Phoenix II
Summary: A oneshot. Inspired by an MSN conversation. Open pairing, but it IS slash. Just read it, please. Make me feel better than I do right now...


Reaching Out

Disclaimer: right…although I DO so wish…

Summary: I just want somebody to love me…

-.-

I've been this way for all of recent memory. When I say this way, I mean it how I appear. I'm aloof, distant. Some call me spacey. I call myself apathetic. It's closest to the truth.

Apathy means that one doesn't care. I _do_ care. I care a lot. I just don't show it in a way that anybody can discern. Most distressingly, I don't show it in a way that _he_ can discern.

Yes, I said "him." I've been focused on him for longer than I've been focused on anyone or anything else. Everyone yells at me about my grades, but I can't focus on school. Everyone yells at me to find a girlfriend, but I can't focus on girls. The fatass calls me a "gay homosexual," but that's incorrect. I'm both, but I'm not both at the same time. I'm gay. I'm a homosexual. But I'm not a "gay homosexual," because I'm NOT straight.

He's always tried to lift me up. Anytime I look like I'm having a particularly bad day, he's at my side with a kind word and a smile. I've given him clue after clue. For a sharp kid, he's really oblivious to this sort of thing.

Sometimes it makes me feel really pathetic. I can't be any more obvious without shouting it out at lunch, but I'm too pathetic, too goddamn spineless to do it. I won't tell him, no matter how much it hurts and no matter how close it comes to killing me.

It does this every day. I stare at him, doing what he does, and dream up these wild fantasies of him dropping everything and practically fucking me silly in the hallways while declaring his undying love to me. I fail those tests, more often than not.

My subconscious mind, my little angel and my little devil, actually agree that I have to tell him. But I CAN'T tell him. It would kill our friendship, it would put too much stress on him, and he can't afford that, not now. Probably most importantly, it would kill ME! Indirectly, of course, I'm not so far gone that I would slash my wrists open. But it wouldn't take long for somebody to blab to their parents, and at least one of those parents to get drunk in the bar, and then think about it again and come after me. He wouldn't have to worry about me anymore, I wouldn't have anything to worry about anymore…maybe telling would be for the best/

Yes…yes, I must. If I am to be shot down, let me be shot down. It'll hurt forever, knowing that I cannot have him, but I won't have to worry about it. I'll walk up to him tomorrow morning, kiss him, and ask him if he loves me. Then, I'll wait for his answer, nod, and leave school, waiting in my room for someone to kill me and relive me of my misery. Maybe I can talk about this with Satan.

Tomorrow then. Tomorrow will be Judgment Day for me.

-.-

I wake up and go through my morning routine with an unusual air of happiness about me. I know that, after today, I won't have anything to worry about. Nothing at all.

I enter the school, searching for my beloved. I find him, as usual, sitting at a table in the cafeteria, doing some last minute homework. He looks so adorable as he furrows his brow while he worries over some math.

"I need to talk to you," I say as I approach him. He doesn't even look to me, he just waves me towards a seat and swears when one of his answers doesn't check back properly.

"Look at me," I say, and he does with a sigh. His eyes have an exasperated expression.

"What the hell do you wan – " he says before I interrupt him with a swift kiss that expresses all the love that I've bottled up for so long, suggested to him without notice, and finally acted upon.

"Do you love me?" I ask with an urgent tone. He just looks at me with a puzzled expression and shakes his head: left-to-right. No.

Crushed. Rejected. Denied. Just as I expected. Judging by the shocked looks on the faces of my classmates, I just might be getting that nighttime visitor. Re-shouldering my bag, I walk the long distance from school to home and spend the rest of the day secluded in my room, staring at my wall.

-.-

It is, according to the grandfather clock downstairs, the ninth hour since I got home and started staring at my wall. My parents have been home and announced their presence, with the normal disregard for anybody else's presence in the home. It is the instant the chimes stop toning that I hear the creak of the floorboards outside my room and the opening of the door. I don't look, choosing instead to continue to stare at the wall.

Whoever it is makes their way to my bed and sits down on it beside me with a sigh. I still do not look. If they're going to kill me, they can just get on with it. It's not until I hear the voice that I turn.

"I meant it, you know," he says, staring at the floor. "I don't _love_ you." I'm quite puzzled as to why he came up to my room this late in the evening to restate this. He said it plainly enough for me this morning. It's not until he looks up and meets my gaze that I understand.

"I _can't stand to be without_ you," he says, moving the tiny distance to join our lips together once more.

Life can be funny like that. Sometimes, though, a funny life is the best kind to have.

-.-

Author's Notes: It's not the sequel to RM. Obviously. It's angsty and depressing, I know. There's no defined pairing: I leave that up to your interpretations. All the same…I encourage reviews, as always.

Oh, and if the one who inspired this is reading this, well…you know who you are. I hope this helps you out.

Phoenix II


End file.
